volunteer space

So what is it with churches and not providing decent space for the technical areas? I have been in many, many, (I would venture to say maybe hundreds) of churches throughout this land and others. One common thread is the relegating as little space as possible to the technical areas. I talk with leadership and the common response is that they are concerned with losing seats. So they people in the soundbooth don't count as members?

Here's the thing. The less space that you have available, the less volunteers you can use. Therefore, the more skilled the volunteer that you are looking for must be. Or look at the reverse. The more space you alot, the more volunteers you can use for the same thing. Therefore, the less skill your volunteers need to be to accomplish the exact same task with the exact same quality.

So you build a one person soundbooth. That person now has to mix for the house (people in the room), mix for the stage, run the lights, run the video, nursery call, etc. So you are looking for a multitalented person that can multitask efficiently. I would venture to guess in the average church you will find only 1 or maybe, if your lucky, 2 people who can do all of this. So you get them involved. God forbid if they take a vacation, get sick, or just want to take a break and enjoy a sunday every now and then with their family.

The altermative. . . Build a multiperson area. Let one person run sound, one person run lights, one person run the video, maybe another handle anything else. Yeah, the sound requires a little challenge, but if you've programmed your lights so that there just scene changes, it doesn't take much execute a "go" command. Most people know how to press play on a video player. Most modern lyric programs are pretty simple.

My best workers were housewifes, and computer illiterate people. I would tell them exactly what button to press when and they would do it. Some of my worst volunteers were technical minded people because they were always wanting to change things rather than creating a well oiled machine.

The trick to volunteers is to break down your tasks that you wish to accomplish into easy tasks. The easier the task the greater the pool of workers you can draw from. I actually had to deal with complaints that the job was too easy and that I wasn't working them enough. Imagine that!

Remember, the people in the room don't remember that you can sit 5 more people but how smoothly the service went. They don't go out and brag about the empty chairs that we can fill but how amazing the service was when the lights changed and the video really hit the point. . . That will fill the seats, the ones in the front row that no one sits in.